


the worst things in life come free to us

by astraea_7



Category: Lost
Genre: AU, oneshots, the plane never crashed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29825109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraea_7/pseuds/astraea_7
Summary: oneshots. if the plane had landed.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	1. shannon

**Author's Note:**

> an idea i’ve been thinking about for a while. there’ll probably only be one chapter per character, not sure how many of them i’ll do yet. title comes from “the a team” by ed sheeran.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> because she was useless, wasn’t she?

boone’s whole world might have ground to a halt when he found out, but shannon’s kept on spinning. it didn’t change anything. it didn’t make her sorry. he was bound to blow her cover eventually, and now she could stop waiting with bated breath for it to happen.

he thought she’d go home with him and start over. let him watch over her as she struggled through her “issues”, because she was useless, wasn’t she? too weak to do it on her own.

everyone thought so. he just said it out loud.

but oh, they were wrong, weren’t they?

london, milan, paris, sydney; an endless parade of the latest fashions with her man of the week on her arm. she was a real-life barbie, changing her name and her clothes and herself with every new city, but never changing the game. hook, line, sinker. then crush every one of them beneath her stilettos.

she knew it would grow old eventually, that someone would wise up and turn the tables on her. but to her surprise, the cons kept working. find a place. land a guy. use him up until there’s nothing more to get, then play the helpless little sister and leave with a full wallet. start it all over again.

she hated it all- hated herself. but she’d been playing this game since before she could remember, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to get out of the rut she’d created.

l.a., san francisco, phoenix, miami. hook, line, sinker. he wasn’t coming to bail her out anymore, but she didn’t stop conning. she played her men off against each other, then pliéd her way out of there before they turned on her. finagling her money and using it up, wandering the world but never standing still. she was afraid of what would happen if she did.

she had nothing and no one but her suitcases full of cocktail dresses and fancy shoes, and that’s the way it would stay. don’t get attached. don’t stick around. just play the part you’re born to- selfish. stuck up. useless.

that’s all she’ll ever be.


	2. kate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she can’t stand under the weight of all her chains.

they take her off the plane first.

she sees the way they look at her as she’s paraded past them in her handcuffs, as though she’s inhuman because of the two bits of metal trapping her wrists. as though she was something disgusting, unworthy of being seated in the same section as them. she sees the fear and the contempt on every one of their faces. they don’t bother to conceal it: they don’t care what _she_ thinks of _them_.

but she knows they’re not seeing her, not really. they see a criminal. ruthless, dangerous, someone to be locked up.

but on the inside she’s still a little girl, and when she gets scared, she runs and she hides.

well, she’s finally been found.

 _run, katie_ , the voices inside of her whisper. _you have to run_.

but where is there to go?

her trial has been a long time coming- her case is full to bursting with evidence and witnesses, and even if she had a lawyer she knows there’s not much that can be done for her. they have the marshal and the bank manager from new mexico and kevin and tom’s wife all staring down at her with hateful eyes. she doesn’t blame them, though she wishes she could.

her mother is the prosecution’s last witness, and she sits up there condemning her only daughter without a shred of regret in her eyes.

she wants to cry.

and then she’s not there anymore, she’s in a house filled with flames and through the window, safe outside, is everyone she’s ever hurt. taunting her with the fact that they get the last laugh, and she’s screaming as the fire laps at her skin because she hurt them, she killed them, _she killed them_ -

and now they’ll kill her.

she’s found guilty.

she knew she would be.

they cuff her in the van so she can barely adjust her position, let alone stand up. she’s one of the dangerous ones, or so they say. she needs extra precautions.

they don’t need to worry. she’s bogged down with so much that she couldn’t run now if she tried.

it’s not even the real handcuffs that are weighing her down. all her life’s burdens are chaining her to the wall, wrapping around her tighter, strangling her to death. her mother, always siding with him instead of her, even now that he’s gone. her father, turning her in, backing the law instead of his daughter. her stepfather (because she won’t call him her real father, he’s not, _she won’t_ ) and his leering looks and offhand comments and strike after strike that weren’t aimed at her, but she still felt them.

she can’t stand under the weight of all her chains. she’s suffocating.

they uncuff her for just a moment when she gets to the prison, escorting her to a bathroom stall and waiting with one hand on the door. she flexes her hands experimentally, then touches the circles around her wrists where the skin has been rubbed raw.

even when they’re not there, she feels the traces they leave behind almost as strongly as the real thing. chains around her ankles. handcuffs around her wrists. bars on every side, her face pressed against them in defeat. wings clipped, caged in, imprisoned.

all she ever wanted was to be free.


	3. ana lucia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ana and her old life are like warped pieces of a puzzle.

_welcome home_ , her mother exclaims with an expression of relief as she hugs her, and ana hugs back. it’s good to have a link again, a bond to someone other than a random old man who she doesn’t even know the real name of. _welcome home_. it rings in her ears, and she’s happy, sure. but she doesn’t feel the click back into place that she thought she would.

ana and her old life are like warped pieces of a puzzle. they fit together, once. but they’re misshapen now, and no matter how hard you try to jam one into the other it never quite works out.

she never quite works out.

the life she has now is dull and unfulfilling. she gets two jobs, part-time, waitressing in different restaurants, but it’s so bland and not her at all. she gets fired from one after a week, because she snaps at all the customers and throws her tray to the floor when one particularly pesky man tells her his food is all wrong for the third time. she should be bothered, but she isn’t, and she keeps on living in an anger-fueled haze.

_you need to talk to someone_ , her mother tells her. _it’s not healthy to bottle it all up like that_.

she sighs and rolls her eyes and mutters something about not being one for chitchat. it’s not a lie, making small talk is like flies buzzing around her ears, and it’s all she can do to stop from swatting at them.

but when she really thinks about it, it’d be nice to unload on someone. they wouldn’t have anything to do with her or her life, and what she told them would stay confidential. she rants to herself in her head all the time, would it really be that different to say it all out loud?

it would be weak, though, to give in. it would be weak to let someone else carry the weight for her. ana lucia doesn’t do weak.

and she doesn’t deserve to let it go, anyways. her burdens are permanent fixtures strapped to her back, a reminder of her past mistakes. she can’t afford to make them again.

her mother brings it up again a couple weeks later, and she laughs it off, brushing it away like she does the dust from her uniform every night (she knows her mother won’t let her back, but she pretends she’s only on leave so she doesn’t fall apart). when the issue gets pushed, she pushes back and shoves the idea headfirst out a window. _i’m just not that kind of person_ , she says to her mom later once she’s calmed down. _talking isn’t gonna do anything for me_.

but she’s bitter and broken and the more she denies it, the more the shards dig into her skin, poking at her until she’d do anything to make the pain go away.

almost anything.

because _she_ _doesn’t give in_.

that’s how it has to be, when you’re a cop. you wear the profession like a suit of armor because when you slip up, a bullet gets through. and you’re fine, always fine, because you can’t show anything but your tough-as-nails front. even though that’s all it is- a front.

she doesn’t give in, and she never will, because she’s a cop and she’s stubborn as hell. she yells this at her mother in one of her frequent fits of fury, but instead of the quiet understanding she expected (her mother should’ve understood, she’s where ana gets it from), she was met with patronizing kindness.

(maybe it’s one of those things that everyone knows without saying aloud. maybe if you let it slip out past your lips it becomes all too real and everyone backs away, pretending it never existed.)

_that’s not who you are anymore, ana,_ she says, and her smile is meant to be reassuring but it looks more like a taunt. _you’re not a cop now, you’re a girl. a girl who needs to work through some things in her life, and sometimes you just can’t do that on your own_.

she storms out. she’ll do it on her own if it kills her.


	4. claire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> but they both know she doesn’t have the power to decide.

the couple was waiting for her at the airport.

they warmed to her right away, and offered to carry her bags as they chattered about how happy they were that she was here, how excited they were for the baby. they thanked her over and over, and it jarred her a little. here these people were, beaming the biggest smiles she’d ever seen before just at the _thought_ of a baby. and she was giving hers away.

she shrugged it off. this was what she wanted. what she _needed_.

it was deja vu, sitting here with the papers in front of her and the hopeful parents across the table. she picked up the pen in shaking fingers and pictured the first time this had played out: the pen didn’t work, and the next one didn’t either. by the third, she was gone.

some small part of her hoped her deja vu would follow through to the end of the meeting, and close with her dashing away yet again.

she pressed the tip of the pen down, her hand trembling. a black gash marred the paper when her fingers slipped.

she signed them.

the couple was nice as nice could be, and kept up a stream of amiable chatter as they drove her to her hotel. _you let us know if you need anything, okay?_ she forced a smile in response.

the talk circled back around to australia; they wanted to know what it was like there. then her flight- _when are you due, sweetie? it’s awfully late in your pregnancy to fly at all, much less internationally_.

she didn’t tell them that she’d all but run away, instead assuring them that the baby wasn’t supposed to come for a month at least.

she went into labor a week later.

as soon as the birth was over she felt the hole inside of her. for eight months she’d carried her child, feeling its heartbeat just below hers, and its presence was reassuring. she would always have someone else with her; she would never be alone so long as the baby was there.

now she is drowning in her loneliness.

claire’s heart swells when the nurse brings her baby back, swaddled in a blanket and fast asleep. she didn’t know she could feel such a great attachment to someone who’d been out in the world for less than an hour, but it made sense.

he was a little piece of her.

_would you like to hold your baby?_

she wants to say no, because she knows that it will just make everything harder. but does she really want to live the rest of her life with the regret of passing up her chance?

she reaches her arms out as an answer.

her insides feel a little less hollow as the tiny being who resided there is reunited with her once more. he fits in the cradle of her arms like he was always meant to be there, and she wonders bitterly if he will fit like this with his new mother as well.

_aaron. his name is aaron, okay?_

the nurse gives her a placating nod, but they both know she doesn’t have the power to decide. she gave up the right when she signed her baby’s life away, and he will grow up someone else’s little boy, maybe a dylan or a matthew or a lucas. but to her, he’ll always be aaron, even if he’s a whole world away with a different, better family, and never knows she exists.

he’ll always be hers, she thinks, and when she sees the couple hovering in her doorway, she squeezes him the slightest bit closer, selfishly hoping that if she doesn’t let go, he won’t belong to them.

they take him before she’s ready and she can’t stop sobbing because her hands and her heart are empty and the one thing that could have filled them is gone.


	5. sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she’s never been left alone long enough to find out what she could be.

she thought it would be better.

she took his smile and his flower and they both got on the plane, and she stared at the country below them as though it were the answer to everything. her eyes were wide with wonder as she took it all in- green and brown and gray, box buildings stacked in rows, and the sparkling lights that pulled her in, vowing that everything was different now.

then they landed, and the spell was broken.

she retreated back into her shell, and life went on. many things _had_ changed, the place and the people. but the only thing she really wanted to leave behind- her father’s vise-like grip over her and her husband, tainting them black with ruin and regret- had followed them. 

she feels it spreading over her by the day, dulling her eyes and dimming her smile. it had gotten to jin a long time ago. she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to wash it all off of her, the poison. maybe it’s dug in too deep for her to be cut free.

the city lights are nothing but pinpricks, the world is clouded over in smoke. there is nothing for sun to look forward to, because her chance to start over was gone.

sometimes she feels it fluttering deep inside of her, a butterfly’s wingbeats seconds away from taking off. it’s a promise, that little flutter, of strength and courage and the new life she could have, if only she reached out and claimed it for herself.

but it beats so softly that only a word from jin can stifle it. _button this, put on that_. _stop, no, you can’t_.

she knows he loves her, he really does, but the love is buried now under doubt and expectations, forcing him into the one thing he never wanted to be. and it hurts so much that he did this for _her_.

if she could go back, would she tell him not to? would they be happy if he wasn’t stuck under her father’s thumb?

sometimes sun feels like a wad of clay, malleable enough for anyone to reshape her into what they’d like her to be. she doesn’t have control; she can’t stop their hands from changing her. if she’s left alone for awhile, she’ll start to harden into her own shape, but she’s never been left alone long enough to find out what she could be.

she allows herself to imagine it now- what would it be like? she pictures a pretty little house with a garden in the back, every color flower that she could find to plant. but no fence around the yard, because she’s had enough of being caged in.

she pictures a little dog’s paw prints on the porch (because she had always loved dogs, even though the way jin had acquired their old one put a sour taste in her mouth) and inside, there they were. a jin who smiled instead of frowned. a sun who stood tall and made her own decisions. a baby, their baby, tying them together and making that house a home.

the butterfly’s wings are a whisper in her chest. she presses her hands over her heart and takes it in, the rapidly growing murmur of hope.

if she let it take off, it could transform her. she could stand on her own two feet and slam the door on her father and his work. she could tell jin that this wasn’t the life she wanted to live, and give him the choice- to build a better one with her, or to keep the old one on his own.

she could have it all, if she just let it in. resistance. defiance. _courage_.

instead she smiles demurely at her husband and stifles the feelings inside of her. she locks the butterfly up tight in a cage and throws away the key. she tried being brave, once, and look where it got her.

she has no room for false hope.


	6. walt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he wants to make his own world, somewhere far away from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i said today’s chapter would be charlie, but i went to finish up his and this happened instead...

when his father came to “take him home”, he wasn’t expecting this.

they didn’t have much, but that wasn’t the problem. walt didn’t mind the smaller house or less things to “play with”. half the stuff he used to have was just a ploy of brian’s to keep him occupied, anyways. what he did mind was the bouncing back and forth between his grandma and his dad, both virtually strangers, neither understanding him.

he liked them both; his dad clearly cared although he was distant, and his grandma, while strict, took good care of him. but the three of them and their makeshift family, always teetering on the edge of disaster? it just… didn’t work.

they didn’t get it, get him. they couldn’t. so most days it was only him and vincent on the same wavelength, entertaining themselves any way they could. walt would look out the window at the cloudy gray sky and wonder- was this really how it was supposed to be?

sometimes his grandmother would yell at his father when they thought walt was asleep, saying that he needed to step up and take responsibility. that she isn’t the parent, and he should be around more for his son. his father responds with the monologue walt’s heard a dozen times already: he has to work, he needs the money, how’s he supposed to support them without it? sometimes walt wonders what it would be like if his dad looked away from his rigid schedule- working and eating and sleeping and maybe checking in with him a few minutes a day- to do something spontaneous. something _fun_.

new york isn’t walt’s idea of the prime place to live, it’s too loud and crowded and he doesn’t like the way the buildings box him in. but he does like the feeling of the city’s heartbeat beneath his shoes and the fact that you can turn a street corner and feel a whole world away. if he was allowed to take vincent and explore, he might learn to love the city. but both his dad and grandma are fiercely overprotective, and most days walt doesn’t venture beyond the four walls of his home (it’s not really home, though, just a place where he has to stay).

he wants something else. he doesn’t know how to articulate it into words, but he wants another life, the opposite of this one. he doesn’t want his old life, he loved his mom and brian was okay but it always felt off, somehow. he doesn’t want his new life, he and his dad fit together in some places and clash awkwardly in others. he wants a life in between the before and the after, set apart from both. a little place carved away from the rest of the world where neither the past nor the future would matter.

he wants to make his own world, somewhere far away from here. but for now, it only exists in the two-dimensional realm of paper, ideas spilling from the tip of his pencil like water from a fountain. he doesn’t draw like his father, though he wishes he could. no, he writes.

he’ll read it aloud to vincent later and feel the words spinning around them like they’re about to be swept away. he’ll stare at the story he created and wish it would absorb him into it. he sees it so clearly that it jars him to remember that this whole atmosphere in his mind? it’s not really there.

in some other strain of time, some other universe, walt imagines that his creation could be reality. surely there really is such a place, where those who are lost find a home. if not, he thinks with his stubborn, still childlike mind, someone should make one.

but for now it’s graphite marks on scraps of paper, and no matter how vibrant the world might be with his eyes closed, it’s always boring black and white when he opens them.


	7. charlie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> but the more he had, the more he needed.

it was always about the music.

it was about the rushing of chords past his ears and the beat of the song at the base of his skull. it was about threading notes together like beads on a string and tying the loose ends into a perfect circle. it was about the lyrics flowing like water and propelling him upwards on a rising tide of melodies, too far above the world to worry about the fall.

it was always about the music, until he poisoned it.

at first the drug made everything vibrant and otherworldly, and he couldn’t imagine going back. each strum of the guitar tingled in his veins and he saw the notes in blinding color. it took what was already exceptional and made it perfect.

but the more he had, the more he needed. the more he needed, the more he took. the more he took, the more the edges of his world darkened and crumbled away, until even the music was a faded blur.

he didn’t notice because it snuck up on him. first it enhanced his view of the world, but then little by little it tore pieces away until the next time he looked, _really_ looked, he saw next to nothing.

(but if he realized it was so bad, why wouldn’t he stop?)

it wasn’t that easy- and he did love the music more, he did. but however corrupted he was now, it would get worse without the heroin. if the world was gray now, it would be pitch black through withdrawal. dark, dull, empty. and filled with more pain than he was willing to bear.

so he locks himself in the plane’s bathroom and spills the powder into his mouth with shaking fingers. he leaves the airport half awake and half somewhere far away, and his existence (because it’s not a life anymore, not really) goes on.

it doesn’t take long before he collapses onstage just like liam once had, and the band collapses with him.

(now there’s no music, and if it was always about the music, what else is left?)

he takes too much and he knows it but he can’t bring himself to care.

never before now did he understand the true meaning of a downward spiral. the floor drops out from under him, he’s tumbling into empty air, and for a while he wasn’t sure which way was up but he knows now that it’s not the way he’s going. little doses used to make him fly, but he’s filled with so much that it pitches him into freefall instead.

it’s all a blur before his eyes and his other senses aren’t much better. his heartbeat roars in his ears, overtaking all other sound. from somewhere outside the cage he’s trapped himself in floats a few music notes in the air, but he can’t hear enough to string them together.

spinning, everything’s spinning, a carousel ride and he can barely breathe, living in a haze of a hospital room.

it was always about the music, but now he only hears the beep of his machines and it grates on his nerves instead of soothing them. it was always about the music, but he poisoned the well where the notes used to flow from and now it’s dried up.

he couldn’t weave out a song with his fingertips now for the life of him.

spinning, everything’s spinning.

will it ever stop?


End file.
